


Dangerous Men

by Lokei



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-28
Updated: 2008-05-28
Packaged: 2017-10-19 07:43:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/198523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lokei/pseuds/Lokei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Those who dream by night, in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that all was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dream with open eyes, and make it possible."  ~T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dangerous Men

**Author's Note:**

> For the SG-1 Friendathon. Much love and many thanks to sg_fignewton, who patiently poked at all my run-ons and caught my commas before they ran away.

_  
"Those who dream by night, in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that all was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dream with open eyes, and make it possible."  ~ T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence ofArabia)       
_

**VII**

Now that he had Daniel back again, and basically in one piece, Jack liked to tell himself that he had always known Daniel would come back.  His linguist couldn't possibly have stayed with the Ancients, Jack would think to himself as he relaxed on his deck by the telescope.  The Ancients were a fairy tale—one they'd written themselves into, with rules that couldn't be followed, but also couldn't be broken without retribution.  They were dreamers, night-sky fools with too much time on their hands, and hands too ethereal to take any hold of reality.

Not Daniel.  Daniel was solid, and if he glowed at all now, it was in the glint of fierce intelligence in his face, and the sun's highlights on his glasses and his very corporeal hair.  He wasn't meant for the kinds of things in life that evaporated if you wished for them too hard.  He never had been.

If Jack said it mentally often enough, he almost believed it. 

**0**

The perpetual twilight ofCheyenneMountain suited Colonel Jack O'Neill, retired-recalled.  Here in the bowels of the military animal, no sunlight could remind him that time was passing in the outside world, and twenty-something stories of rock were a far more effective way of shutting himself away from it all than the insufficient darkness provided by the drawn shades in an empty bedroom.

Wandering around in his self-imposed darkness, Jack was jarred when he came across the one person in the entire base who didn't give a fig for his bad attitude.  Dr. Daniel Jackson didn't care whether it was day or night either, but for entirely different reasons.

 _"Lunatic."_

That was the word General West had chosen for Dr. Langford's newest recruit.To be sure, the man's incomprehensible academic chatter would have been enough to send Jack running for either the hills or for his gun under other circumstances.However, Jack had to admit to a certain amount of respect for a man who would fly in the face of his entire established profession.  'Lunatic' implied someone moon-mad, driven to crazy behavior and changeable as the tides.  Jack would allow there was a certain flightiness to some of Jackson's rambling.In his approach to the mystery of what the scholar had named the 'Stargate,' however, Jackson seemed to walk steadily under the perpetual noon of his own convictions.  That took guts.  Jack could understand guts.

 **I**

It was very, very, very hard not to shake Daniel until his overeducated brain rattled under his blatantly civilian haircut.What on earth had the man been thinking, staring into the swirly light show over his head like he’d found the answers to the universe?

To be fair, Daniel _might_ have found the answers to the universe in that holographic encyclopedia thing.On the other hand, he’d also found an airy nothing, a wisp of foxfire that led away from his quest for his wife, away from SG-1, away from anything but a life of madness like that poor shmuck Ernest. 

Except Daniel had come this close to choosing it.What the hell had he been thinking?

Across the briefing room table, Daniel was looking at him with that mixture of puzzlement and reproach which smacked Jack hard with a sense of familiarity.It was the same expression Daniel had worn in the Abydos gateroom when Jack and company had gated back to find the supposedly dead Dr. Jackson standing there looking hale, hearty, and as comfortable in his robes as an outer-space goddamned Lawrence of Arabia. He’d been puzzled then by Jack’s return, and not a little bit hurt that it took Jack so long to see what he’d accomplished in that missing year.The people of Abydos had not a trace of servility left in their effusive greetings, their proud bearing, or their dignified speech.An awful lot of that, from the accented English to the confidence to the moonshine, was due to Daniel’s influence.

Daniel had that same look now—and then it was gone.Jack figured his sudden comprehension must have been as readable to Daniel as Daniel’s puzzlement was to Jack.

For Daniel, that whole Heliopolis thing was more than an insubstantial hologram. Freedom had once seemed equally dreamlike tothe people of Abydos, but Daniel and his determination catalyzed their journey from concept to reality.Daniel’s fancy light show could have had the keys to helping Sha’re, defending Earth, and contacting other alien races.That was what Daniel had seen.Only his overwhelming need to teach, to connect, to share had brought him back.

Maybe next time there wouldn’t be a collapsing castle between Daniel’s concepts and their execution. 

**VIII**

The sun was nice.Gentle breeze off the water, not too chilly to be comfortable.Birds, beer in the cooler, bait on the line.It was all good.

None of this explained Jack’s antsy feeling, which for once was not being provoked by the archaeologist lazing by his side.Jack twitched his fishing pole and tried to focus on relaxing.They’d saved the earth again.

The sun was nice.Peaceful.Ironic. 

“Do you ever think—“ Jack started and then snapped his mouth shut.Too late, naturally.Daniel looked up from his spot on the blanket.

“Frequently,” Daniel’s eyebrows bobbed and Jack rolled his eyes.Daniel was too quick, though.“Think about what?”

“Do you ever think, well,” Jack stumbled over the inadequate words, “I mean, we killed the sun god.”

“Gods of light and gods of darkness,” Daniel murmured in perfect understanding.Ra.Seth.Hathor.Apophis (repeatedly).Cronus (by extension).The list went on and on—gods they had dethroned, belief systems they had undermined.Not to mention entire populations wiped out or irrevocably altered simply by associating with the godless Tau’ri.

Abydos.Chulak.Hanka.Argos.Cimmeria—after all, the Asgard weren’t bad guys, but it turned out they weren’t gods either.

And that had all been in the very first year of going through the ‘gate—the list by now was something close to terrifying.

“Thrones and dominations,” Daniel added, and Jack’s lips curled upwards momentarily in no real mirth.Once again, they were still reading from the same page, even if Jack’s wouldn’t have included references to _Paradise Lost_ eight or nine years ago.

Daniel’s head tilted a little further to get a better look at Jack from under the boonie Jack had excavated from one of the cabin’s closets.For a moment it was like Jack was looking at the Daniel of years ago, all inquisitive gleam and barely contained bounces of exhilaration.Then Daniel’s face shifted once more to the more controlled expression Jack knew now and was still trying to understand.Then somewhere, somehow, Daniel’s face, the fate of gods and worlds, the tilt of the boonie and the lingering openness in Daniel’s eyes got all tangled up in Jack’s brain, and when he opened his mouth, more words fell out.

“So where does that leave us?”

Another tilt of Daniel’s head, and this time Jack was sure he was seeing a flash of that mischief which was so successfully buried these days.

“Fishing,” Daniel replied.

Literally.Metaphorically.For the sake of humanity and a damn good vacation.

Jack smiled.“I can work with that.”

 


End file.
